I'm in the garage looking at my Vantage and the thought popped into my head that one thing that makes the car look so good is no front bumper. But this lead me to start thinking - how to the pass the US Federal standards for a 5 mph bumper? There's nothing up there in the front that I can see - though I've never pulled the front end apart. If they have designed it into the car, they sure disguised it well. All I can envision in a low speed impact is a collapsed expensive grille and bent front hood Anyone ever seen any kind of impact protection in the front end? Just curious is all. Here's the NHTSA standards for bumpers:

http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/problems/s...per/Index.html

 

The front is long enough to cover everything up so nothing (specifically the bumper) is visible. There's a TON of space between the front of the car and the front of the engine. It's all in there. Look at any other exotic, like a Ferrari 458. The crash structure in that is even less obvious.

 

My 07 was delivered with a front license plate plinth, including a black injection molded plastic appearance surface, an aluminum plate and a hard foam pad that fit inside, as I remember. There is no front plate required in MI (requirement went away when law enforcement could not remember ever needing the front plate for vehicle identification.)

All this hardware was delivered inside the car, but I can see where the intent was probably to meet the standard when the car was designed.

The Standard has been rewritten or modified a couple of times since first promulgated in the early 1970s in the US. Goal had been to eliminate bumpers that had become chrome plated stamped steel moldings, highly styled ornaments with little or no damage control function.

Probably the biggest improvement in car damage resistance came with the universal adoption of the molded and painted bodycolor fascias front and rear. Its a soft urethane skin with flexible urethane paint. Not perfect but its light and resists damage.

 

I don't know how guys are lowering the car. the AMV8 is as low as my race car, AND it still scrapes, just barely over normal speedbumps at a very slow speed. 1/2" lower and it would be taking off that little splitter piece under the front bumper